History buffs hear story of murder, mysteryRecalling Belle Gunness, the 'Mistress of Murder Hill'

June 28, 2006|KATE SHERIDAN Tribune Correspondent

In 19th century Norway, the young blond woman was known as Brynhilda Poulsdotter, a pretty and ambitious farmer's daughter who made her way to America, settling in Chicago in the early 1880s. In 21st century Three Oaks, she's being remembered as Belle Gunness, "Mistress of Murder Hill," according to one account -- the quiet, prosperous widow, foster mother, and serial murderess who systematically killed, dismembered, and buried up to 40 unsuspecting men, women and children before escaping from -- or dying in, no one knows for sure -- a spectacular, deadly inferno on her LaPorte County farm. Dozens of mystery and history buffs crammed into the Three Oaks Township Library's meeting room recently to hear LaPorte historian Bruce Johnson revisit the harrowing trail of greed-inspired duplicity and cold-blooded murder that put LaPorte briefly on the nation's radar in the 20th century's infancy. Before Belle's treachery was literally unearthed, the obvious facts were gruesome enough to make headlines for weeks during the summer and fall of 1908: -A raging fire that consumed all but the dead bodies of three small children discovered in the basement of the smoldering ruins. -Nearby, the headless, charred corpse of a woman, assumed at the time to be their mother, Belle Gunness. -The arrest of farmhand-turned-lover, Ray Lamphere, whom Belle had had arrested three times for trespassing after she taken a new suitor "the big Swede," Andrew Helgelein. For nearly 100 years, the harrowing tale of Brynhilda Poulsdotter -- aka Belle Gunness -- circulated mostly locally, a mix of fact, rumor and speculation drawn from trial transcripts, grisly photos, lurid newspaper accounts and at least two crime-novel retellings. The compelling blend of murder, mystery and money still seems to drive continued interest in Belle Gunness, Johnson said. Despite a lengthy police investigation, a well-publicized and immensely popular search for bodies and victims, even an arrest, trial and conviction --for arson, not murder -- "there are still more questions than answers in this story," he said. "One big question is -- how many people did Belle Gunness murder? No one really knows." And no one knows for certain if the headless, charred corpse found with the dead bodies of Belle's three young foster children in the burned-out remains of the Gunness farm in April 1908, was in fact Belle Gunness. "Today, most people believe it was not Belle who died in the raging fire" that farmhand Joe Maxson discovered before dawn that day, and that the murderess killed the children and another woman, then slipped away before the fire was set, Johnson said. The woman's body found in the ashes was much smaller and thinner than Belle herself, he added. Neither does anyone know with any certainty when and why Belle went bad, "although there are many stories, both here and in Norway," Johnson noted. Nearly all involve a cold-blooded and steely-eyed pursuit of money. "Belle Gunness is one of those stories that just fascinates people," Johnson told a group of about 40 history buffs in Three Oaks. "I've been fascinated by this mystery practically my whole life." He said he hopes to soon begin a book about the hapless Ray Lamphere and his life, trial and death in prison a year after the fire on McClung Road.